Ask an Atheist

[AgeofKnowledge]

Yes worry. Only the majority of liberal scholarship views it as a "fashionable stance" and the number of them aligning with Bauer is slowly diminishing as a result of Bauer's thesis being soundly refuted. Change takes time, of course, and that change is already underway in academia. Conservative and orthodox Christian scholars no longer invoke his falsified hypothesis except to rebut it.

Walter Bauer is wrong and his thesis has been empirically falsified by scholars. For example, the book titled 'The Heresy of Orthodoxy' authored by Dr. Andreas J. Köstenberger (Phd Trinity Evangelical Divinity School), Dr. Michael J. Kruger (Ph.D., University of Edinburgh), and Ian Howard Marshall (Ph.D., University of Aberdeen; D.D., Asbury) I recommended for you to read as an entry point to that discussion is a good example of why the end of Bauer's fashionability is at hand and underway.

Here's a simple book review of it which explains some of the important reasons how and why Walter Bauer's thesis is wrong: Book Review: The Heresy of Orthodoxy by Kostenberger and Kruger

The apostate Erhman chose to follow Bauer's falsified hypothesis for the same reason Andrew Dickson White lied about Columbus. As Dr. Rodney Stark (Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley) states:

"Almost every word of White's account of the Columbus story is a lie. Every educated person of the time, including Roman Catholic prelates, knew the earth was round [provides irrefutable evidence for this assertion in the following pages in 'For the Glory of God' which you should read]... and advised against funding him because they also knew the world was far larger than Columbus thought it was. They opposed his plan only on the grounds that he had badly underestimated the circumference of the earth and was counting on much too short a voyage [Columbus asserted 2,800 miles from the Canary Islands to Japan when it is actually 14,000 miles]. Had the Western Hemisphere not existed, and Columbus had no knowledge that it did, he and his crew would have died at sea."

Now pay attention, "Why do only specialists know now? For the same reason that White's book remains influential despite the fact that modern historians of science dismiss it as nothing but a polemic--White himself admitted that he wrote the book to get even with Christian critics of his plans for Cornell. The reason we [non-specialist general audience] didn't know the truth concerning these matters is that the claim of an inevitable and bitter warfare between religion and science has, for more than three centuries, been the primary polemical devices used in the atheist attack on faith. From Thomas Hobbes through Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins, false claims about religion, history, and science have been used as weapons in the battle to 'free' the human mind from the 'fetters of faith.'"

That is why the apostate Ehrman chose Bauer's lead (e.g. falsified thesis) as the object from which to build his own false thesis... because it conformed to his own prejudice. Likewise the apostate Lataster for the same reasons and Cycel the apostate for the same reasons also.

Sure we all have prejudices but the foundation here is false. Bauer's thesis with respect to early Christianity IS wrong, patently wrong. And what Ehrman gets wrong is plain. He purports to be about unbiased history but rarely presents opposing viewpoints that would refute his own; claims to follow the scholarly consensus but breaks from it often; insists on the historical-critical method but then uses a modernist, overly-literal hermeneutic; claims no one else's view of early Christianity could be "right" but then invokes Walter Bauer as the basis to tell us which view of early Christianity is "right" despite Bauer already being falsified; dismisses Papias with a wave of the hand but presents the Gospel of the Ebionites as if it were equal to the canonical four and does this with ancient manuscripts so often it leaves you gasping; declares everyone can "pick and choose" what is right for them (as if truth comports to disparate whim) and then offers a litany of moral absolutes he believes in; etc... etc... etc...

I believe one scholar called his behavior "intellectual schizophrenia."

Not to worry. If Ehrman followed Bauer's lead it is because the majority of liberal scholarship today takes much the same view. Essentially the conservative view of orthodox scholarship is offended by the claims Bauer made. If AgeofKnowledge is correct, and I suspect he is, in their minds they think they've discounted him.

“Bauer concluded that what came to be known as orthodoxy was just one of numerous forms of Christianity in the early centuries. It was the form of Christianity practiced in Rome that exercised the uniquely dominant influence over the development of orthodoxy[3] and acquired the majority of converts over time. This was largely due to the greater resources available to the Christians in Rome and due to the conversion to Christianity of the Roman Emperor Constantine I. Practitioners of what became orthodoxy then rewrote the history of the conflict making it appear that this view had always been the majority one. Writings in support of other views were systematically destroyed.” Walter Bauer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ehrman is pretty much middle of the road, from what I’ve read, and what little I’ve read on Bauer leads me to think liberal scholarship has not abandoned him.

The Bauer Hypothesis of Christian Origins (above in bold type) is “A fashionable stance today, especially in liberal theological circles, [which] seeks to explain early Christianity in terms of a set of highly diverse movements...” The bauer Hypothsis of Christian Origins (Tekton Education and Apologetics Ministries). If the Bauer Hypothesis is “a fashionable stance today” it can hardly be said to have been “soundly refuted.”

 

[nl]

That's not the point though. You indicated that the 7 day week was common around the world, implying, I think, that the ancients all got their calendars from God. I showed that the Romans, Egyptians, and Mayans had different sources; but is there also the possibility that the Hebrew's got theirs from the Babylonians? I wouldn't rule it out. “The calendar used by Jews has evolved over time. The basic structural features of the early calendar are thought to have been influenced by the Babylonian calendar, including the seven-day week, the lunisolar intercalary adjustment and the names of the months.”

Hebrew calendar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If ancient cultures knew the truth about events we see from Genesis like one God, seven day week of creation and a widespread flood, but wanted to revise the story then we should expect some variations. They might want to revise the story because God has revealed Himself to discern between righteousness and wickedness, to judge sin in Cain, to judge sin at the time of Noah, to judge sin at the time of ancient Sodom and Gomorrah. People might not want to fully acknowledge those stories and prefer full or partial denial. I could imagine people wanting to change those stories.

If so, then we could expect ancient variations to the story of one God like polytheism/idolatry, variations in the seven day week, and alternative flood legends. We see those variations.

The seven day week fits the nature of earth with its 24 hour rotation and the nature of man. After 5-6 days of work, people enjoy maybe a TGIF event and a weekend / day of worship and rest.

 

[nl]

Europe, Asia, Africa, Americas, Australia, island nations all observe the seven day week. Christians, Jews and Muslims observe the seven day week. Totalitarian, communist USSR and China observed it. In the future, some may try to re-design the seven day week but the seven day week is a good design.

 

[Cycel]

Do not forget to include that Abraham was, in fact, from Chaldea. The seven day week is from God.

Biblical scripture teaches that Abraham was from “Ur of the Chaldees,” but there is a problem. Abraham is said to have been born about 2000 BC, but the land of the Chaldees did not exist until about 1000 - 600 BC and Ur of the Chaldees seems to refer to a particular dynasty that only existed for a short time in about 600 BC, which coincidentally is about the time of the Babylonian captivity. Did the traditions of Abraham actually originate from this time?

Although, you have me because I can't prove it. The day is determined by the sun. The month was/is determined by the moon. The year is based on the earth's revolving around the sun. But there is no reason for the week outside of the fact that it is from God. And just because some nations have played with using a different number of days in a week doesn't change that.

You are right that the length of the day is determined by the rotation of earth on its axis, the length of the year by the revolution of our planet around the sun, and the length of the month by the lunar cycle, but the number of days in the week is historically important. It shows the length of the week was developed independently in different parts of the world and is not related to scripture. If the number of days in the week was the same everywhere you would have a really interesting argument demonstrating the probability of a shared tradition. The absence of commonality, however, argues against a shared tradition. Nl’s original assumption, after all, was that a seven day week was found everywhere. He raised this as a demonstration of a shared tradition with Genesis. That the opposite situation is in fact true means the tally mark must be added to my side of the column.

What's up Cycel. Have you abandoned the "Is there such a thing as an atheist?" thread. I haven't seen you in a while.

I’ve been posting a bit less of late, and have been tied up in this thread. I should go back and see what’s been added to the old.

 

[Cycel]

Europe, Asia, Africa, Americas, Australia, island nations all observe the seven day week. Christians, Jews and Muslims observe the seven day week. Totalitarian, communist USSR and China observed it. In the future, some may try to re-design the seven day week but the seven day week is a good design.

And they all observe Greenwich Mean Time, but it's not relevant to the original point.

 

[AgeofKnowledge]

Abraham was born about 1813 BCE. Abraham's father, was the chief officer or minister of the first king mentioned in the Torah, the mighty King Nimrod of Babylon (also known by its former name, Shinear, and the land of the Chaldees). The Chaldeans were a Semitic people known in Babylonia from at least the end of the 2nd millennium BC.

Biblical scripture teaches that Abraham was from “Ur of the Chaldees,” but there is a problem. Abraham is said to have been born about 2000 BC, but the land of the Chaldees did not exist until about 1000 - 600 BC and Ur of the Chaldees seems to refer to a particular dynasty that only existed for a short time in about 600 BC, which coincidentally is about the time of the Babylonian captivity. Did the traditions of Abraham actually originate from this time?

 

[Timeline]

Biblical scripture teaches that Abraham was from “Ur of the Chaldees,” but there is a problem. Abraham is said to have been born about 2000 BC, but the land of the Chaldees did not exist until about 1000 - 600 BC and Ur of the Chaldees seems to refer to a particular dynasty that only existed for a short time in about 600 BC, which coincidentally is about the time of the Babylonian captivity. Did the traditions of Abraham actually originate from this time?


You are right that the length of the day is determined by the rotation of earth on its axis, the length of the year by the revolution of our planet around the sun, and the length of the month by the lunar cycle, but the number of days in the week is historically important. It shows the length of the week was developed independently in different parts of the world and is not related to scripture. If the number of days in the week was the same everywhere you would have a really interesting argument demonstrating the probability of a shared tradition. The absence of commonality, however, argues against a shared tradition. Nl’s original assumption, after all, was that a seven day week was found everywhere. He raised this as a demonstration of a shared tradition with Genesis. That the opposite situation is in fact true means the tally mark must be added to my side of the column.


I’ve been posting a bit less of late, and have been tied up in this thread. I should go back and see what’s been added to the old.

I would say that absence of commonality just suggests that men are stubborn

Like that's news - One of the things Atheists have in common with Creationists is our boundless ability to be stubborn.

 

[nl]

People don't always need a lot of science or evidence. They just believe what they want to believe.

 

[nl]

Biblical scripture teaches that Abraham was from “Ur of the Chaldees,” but there is a problem. Abraham is said to have been born about 2000 BC, but the land of the Chaldees did not exist until about 1000 - 600 BC and Ur of the Chaldees seems to refer to a particular dynasty that only existed for a short time in about 600 BC, which coincidentally is about the time of the Babylonian captivity. Did the traditions of Abraham actually originate from this time?

The city of Ur existed prior to 2500 BC.

See details at: Ur | Infoplease.com

The term "Chaldeans" (Khaldinis) may be of greater difficulty since it is strongly associated with Nebuchadnessar and the Babylonian Captivity (6th century BCE) but its roots appear to be much older even going back to Nimrod and Cush after Noah. Sources include:

Link: http://networkedblogs.com/xkv7j
Link: Abraham- the Son of a Sumerian Oracle Priest
Link: Assyrian people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Some seek to remember; some seek to forget".

 

[Cycel]

The city of Ur existed prior to 2500 BC.

There is no dispute that Ur existed very early in history, but that is not the issue. The problem is "Ur of the Chaldeans."

The term "Chaldeans" (Khaldinis) may be of greater difficulty since it is strongly associated with Nebuchadnessar and the Babylonian Captivity (6th century BCE) but its roots appear to be much older even going back to Nimrod and Cush after Noah.

Ur of the Chaldeans did not exist until about 600 BC. So there is a problem here. The solution is that the author of Genesis did not realize he was setting Abraham in two very different time periods. The desire of the evangelical believer then is to harmonize the account to remove the discrepancy because discrepancies are not permitted if scripture.

William Dever, in Did God have a Wife? argues that prior to the Babylonian exile Israel was polytheistic. He has come to this view largely through archeological findings, and his thesis – while once controversial – has gathered a large following. I am just guessing here but could it be that an old oral tradition of Abraham has been grafted onto a newer story in an attempt to strengthen the monotheistic hand of biblical editors following the exile? The belief of liberal scholarship, I think, is that the Old Testament was redacted after the exile. This might account for the discrepancy of the two dates for Abraham.

 

[GodIsSalvation]

There is no dispute that Ur existed very early in history, but that is not the issue. The problem is "Ur of the Chaldeans."


Ur of the Chaldeans did not exist until about 600 BC. So there is a problem here. The solution is that the author of Genesis did not realize he was setting Abraham in two very different time periods. The desire of the evangelical believer then is to harmonize the account to remove the discrepancy because discrepancies are not permitted if scripture.

William Dever, in Did God have a Wife? argues that prior to the Babylonian exile Israel was polytheistic. He has come to this view largely through archeological findings, and his thesis – while once controversial – has gathered a large following. I am just guessing here but could it be that an old oral tradition of Abraham has been grafted onto a newer story in an attempt to strengthen the monotheistic hand of biblical editors following the exile? The belief of liberal scholarship, I think, is that the Old Testament was redacted after the exile. This might account for the discrepancy of the two dates for Abraham.

The "Did God Have a Wife" heresy is nonsense. If you want to see what God thinks of the Asherah idol, you can find that in many parts of the Old Testament. Once again more proof for the biblical account.

As for Ur of the Chaldeans, lol, the jews called them Kasdim. You will note in the Bible before the Babylonians are called Babylonians, they are referred to as Chaldeans. So merely this is denoting the political power/people group of Babylonia before the rise of the Babylonian Empire proper. As we know the Hebrews called them the Kasdim, The Greeks who came later translated this to Chaldean, which was the term they used for the land and people in their time. Same land, same people, different languages.

EDIT: To use a modern parable, look how people talk about Britain, yet today Great Britain is not called Great Britain, it is the United Kingdom. Same land, same people, simply different changes in language use.

 

[AgeofKnowledge]

Atheist William Dever's assertion is false and refuted. I'm always amazed at the ignorance of atheists with respect to biblical archeology. I imagine an atheist will one day discover a child's Casper the ghost Halloween costume and wrongly assume that Christians in the 20th century worshipped Casper the ghost. It makes about as much sense as asserting Judaism was polytheistic and that Judaism taught God had a wife.

ASHERAH: A Canaanite mother-goddess mentioned in the Ras Shamra texts (aṯrtt) as a goddess of the sea and the consort of El, but associated in the OT with Baal (e.g. Jdg. 3:7). While the OT sometimes refers to Asherah as a goddess (e.g., 1 Ki. 18:19; 2 Ki. 23:4; 2 Ch. 15:16), the name is used also of an image made for that goddess (e.g. 1 Ki. 15:13) which consequently came to represent her.

The Israelites were commanded to cut down (e.g. Ex. 34:13) or burn (Dt. 12:3) the asherim of the Canaanites, and were likewise forbidden themselves to plant ‘an Asherah of any kind of tree’ beside God’s altar (Dt. 16:21).

-W. L. Reed, The Asherah in the Old Testament, 1949; A. Caquot, M. Sznycer and A. Herdner, Textes Ougaritiques, 1, 1974, pp. 68–73; J. C. de Moor in TDOT I, pp. 438–444; R. Patai JNES 24 1965, pp. 37–52; W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel 3, 1953, pp. 77–79; J. Marquet-Krause, 3, 1949, p. 18.

Gee, why would the Israelites be commanded to destroy "God's wife" I wonder [sarcasm intended].

As Bible Gateway points out: Although God revealed himself to His people as the one and only true God (even singling out Asherah worship for condemnation), the Israelites, surrounded by other nations that worshiped many gods, constantly backslid into idolatry.

This idolatry didn’t always take the form of an outright denial of God—rather than denying Yahweh, the Israelites would often start worshipping other deities (like Asherah) alongside Yahweh; or sometimes they would worship Yahweh in a way that he had expressly forbidden. Much of the Old Testament describes the forbidden worship of pagan gods like Asherah and the Baals and the failure of Israel’s leaders to outlaw such cults.

This was a recurring theme for the Biblical prophets. One of the most vivid passages in Jeremiah 2 describes God’s amazement at Israel’s constant backsliding into idol worship, despite all that God had done for them.

As Dr. Clay Jones (Doctor of Ministry, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) states:

"Israel’s response to Canaanite sin is a parable of how their own sinfulness empowered them to ape the sin of the Canaanites and thereby procure God’s judgment on them. For God does not show favoritism. Israel was warned not to let the Canaanites live in their land, but to completely destroy them (Exod. 23:33; Deut. 20:16–18), lest the Israelites learn the Canaanite ways (Exod. 34:15–16). If they did not destroy them, the land would “vomit” them out just as it had vomited out the Canaanites (Num. 33:56; Lev. 18:28; Deut 4:23–29, 8:19–20).

Instead, the Israelites worshiped the Canaanites’ gods and “did evil” (Judg. 10:6; 1 Kings 14:22; 2 Kings 17:10). They had “male shrine prostitutes” (1 Kings 14:22), committed acts of “lewdness,” adultery, and incest (Jer. 5:7; 29:23; Hos. 4:13–14; Ezek. 22:10–11; Amos 2:7), and even Solomon set up an altar to Molech (1 Kings 11:5, 7–8). God commanded them to break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire” (vv. 3–5). As such, the aim of God’s command was not the obliteration of the wicked but the obliteration of wickedness.

But instead of repenting when things went badly, they concluded that their misfortune was because they stopped burning incense to “the Queen of Heaven,” Inanna/Ishtar (Jer. 44:18). So the Lord said that Israel became “like Sodom to me” (Jer. 23:14)."

Although prophets warned the northern kingdom (usually referred to as Israel or Samaria) of impending doom, they didn’t repent, and in 722 BC the king of Assyria killed or deported most of them, and filled the land with conquered peoples from other nations. Similarly, the southern tribes (usually referred to as Judah) were deported when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem beginning in 586 BC. Just as God had demonstrated his knowledge of who would repent in the Canaanite cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, before he destroyed Jerusalem He told Jeremiah that if He could find even one righteous person He would spare the entire city (Jer. 5:1).

So to the question “Did the ancient Israelites worship other gods, like Asherah, alongside Yahweh?” the answer is clear: many strayed from the monotheism of Judaism and ultimately were punished for it. The Bible repeatedly and unequivocally condemns this "adultery" describing these pagan gods as nothing more than lifeless idols. The clear and consistent teaching of the Bible is that God has neither divine rivals nor equals.

To the more controversial question “Did God have a wife?” the answer is also clear: nowhere in the Bible is this even hinted at, and people who claim this was the case must posit a conspiracy theory in which huge chunks of the Bible were retroactively rewritten to falsify the record. There is no manuscript evidence suggesting an “earlier version” of Israelite history that endorsed polytheism. Scholars continue to debate the development of Israel’s understanding of God’s uniquely revealed monotheism, but the burden of proof lies on the critics to demonstrate that this is more plausible than simply accepting the Bible text we have as genuine.

 

[AgeofKnowledge]

There's only a problem with your understanding. It's true that it wasn't until nearly a thousand years after Abraham's time, that Ur really became part of the Chaldean territory; however, during the Assyrian period the Chaldeans were the most important tribal component of the Babylonian population and "Ur of the Chaldees" was the most economical way of identifying the town regardless of the anachronism of the phrase.

Ur of the Chaldeans did not exist until about 600 BC. So there is a problem here.

 

[AgeofKnowledge]

There may be a new atheist theory called casperthefriendlyghostboobkeyabooko surfacing in which Abraham is actually "proved" to be a polytheistic atheist (never mind the contradiction, it's not important to these people lol) by an atheist, of course, who mishandles ancient artifacts and invents the falsehood which will be subsequently refuted because it's false, of course... lol.

It's a good way to sell books in a crowded marketplace in which you have to invent something new to garner attention and make a buck. And, of course, the apostates and atheists will immediately gravitate toward casperthefriendlyghostboobkeyabooko and assert that it's true as sure as the earth orbits the sun.

Lol.

 

[didymos]

(...)
-W. L. Reed, The Asherah in the Old Testament, 1949; A. Caquot, M. Sznycer and A. Herdner, Textes Ougaritiques, 1, 1974, pp. 68–73; J. C. de Moor in TDOT I, pp. 438–444; R. Patai JNES 24 1965, pp. 37–52; W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel 3, 1953, pp. 77–79; J. Marquet-Krause, 3, 1949, p. 18 (...)

Your sources are quite old, plenty of research has been done since.
A good introduction (translated from the german) to the religious iconography of ancient Palestine is:

Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, And Images of God, Minneapolis 1998.

'Keel and Uehlinger's unique study brings the massive Palestinian archaeological evidence of 8,500 amulets and inscriptions to bear on these questions. Vindicating the use of symbols and visual remains to investigate ancient religion, the authors employ iconographic evidence from around 1750 B.C.E. through the Persian period (c. 333 B.C.E.) to reconstruct the emergence and development of the Yahweh cult in relation to its immediate neighbors and competitors. They also fully explore whether female characteristics were present in the early Yahweh figure and how they might have evolved in Israelite religion. Keel and Uehlinger's major study marks the maturation of iconographical studies and affords an exciting glimpse into the vibrant religious life of ancient Canaan and Israel.'

Source: Gods, Goddesses, And Images of God - Othmar Keel, Christoph Uehlinger - Google Boeken

 

[nl]

There is no dispute that Ur existed very early in history, but that is not the issue. The problem is "Ur of the Chaldeans."

Ur of the Chaldeans did not exist until about 600 BC. So there is a problem here. The solution is that the author of Genesis did not realize he was setting Abraham in two very different time periods. The desire of the evangelical believer then is to harmonize the account to remove the discrepancy because discrepancies are not permitted if scripture.

William Dever, in Did God have a Wife? argues that prior to the Babylonian exile Israel was polytheistic. He has come to this view largely through archeological findings, and his thesis – while once controversial – has gathered a large following. I am just guessing here but could it be that an old oral tradition of Abraham has been grafted onto a newer story in an attempt to strengthen the monotheistic hand of biblical editors following the exile? The belief of liberal scholarship, I think, is that the Old Testament was redacted after the exile. This might account for the discrepancy of the two dates for Abraham.

Referring to the "Sanskit books of India", the source says that ancient Chaldea has older roots.

The foundations of ancient Chaldea, were laid as early as those of Egypt. In fact they were the sister colonies of a parent state. The earliest civilized inhabitants were Sumerians. 5000 B. C. the land was full of city-states. The Sanskrit books of India, called Chaldea one of the divisions of Cusha-Dwipa, the first organized government of the world.

Source: Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire: Chapter XI. The Strange Races of Chaldea

Sanskrit literature has been dated at least as early as 1500 BCE. Link: Sanskrit literature - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cush as a son of Ham who was the son of Noah (Genesis 10:6)

BTW, IMHO, history has been "redacted" by more than a few for centuries and longer. That doesn't make it right. History is also impacted by the values and presuppositions of those who filter and edit its content. Depending upon a position to be advocated, it is my estimation that estimated dates have been moved earlier or later.

 

[nl]

Demons believe. Disciples follow.

Demons believe.
You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. (James 2:19 NIV)

Disciples follow.
The next day He purposed to go into Galilee, and He found Philip. And Jesus said to him, “Follow Me.” (John 1:43 NASB)

 

[AgeofKnowledge]

The very scholarly sources I cited, that you don't like because they are older, were used strictly in the context of providing a definition for the false Canaanite deity under discussion. I can provide plenty of university dictionary definitions from up-to-date revisions that say the same thing. The source you cite disproves nothing I said but read Dr. Richard S. Hess's (Earl S. Kalland Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Denver Seminary) 'Did Yahweh Have a Wife?' and associated citations for a scholarly refutation.

Source: “Did Yahweh Have a Wife? Iron Age Religion in Israel and Its Neighbors,” pp. 189-224 in Paul Copan and William Lane Craig eds., Come Let Us Reason: New Essays in Christian Apologetics (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2012).

Also read: Richard Hess, Israelite Religions (Baker, 2007), 283-289.

As Dr. Michael Heiser (Ph.D)'s states regarding the false assertion that Yahweh had a wife Asherah:

"So, because we have some inscriptions that *might* point to the goddess Asherah we can then conclude that, at some point, all Yahweh worshippers believed in a divine couple? Why is that demonstrably true over against the view held by basically all scholars of Israelite religion that the textual and material record in Canaan shows us religious diversity?...

I’ve said before that all scholars in biblical studies should be forced to take a course in logic, and this matter is a real case in point. Religious diversity is a far more coherent model. Diversity, of course, means that some would have believed Yahweh had a wife, while others would not. What a surprise. The Hebrew Bible itself tells us (on nearly every page of the Deuteronomistic History1, so to speak) that many Israelites rejected the “orthodox Yahwism” of the prophets, opting for alternative worship for Yahweh...

The claims that are being made about Yahweh and Asherah are fallacious, as they absolutely over-extend the data, not to mention neglecting decades of prior scholarship on the issue."

Your sources are quite old, plenty of research has been done since.
A good introduction (translated from the german) to the religious iconography of ancient Palestine is:

Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, And Images of God, Minneapolis 1998.

'Keel and Uehlinger's unique study brings the massive Palestinian archaeological evidence of 8,500 amulets and inscriptions to bear on these questions. Vindicating the use of symbols and visual remains to investigate ancient religion, the authors employ iconographic evidence from around 1750 B.C.E. through the Persian period (c. 333 B.C.E.) to reconstruct the emergence and development of the Yahweh cult in relation to its immediate neighbors and competitors. They also fully explore whether female characteristics were present in the early Yahweh figure and how they might have evolved in Israelite religion. Keel and Uehlinger's major study marks the maturation of iconographical studies and affords an exciting glimpse into the vibrant religious life of ancient Canaan and Israel.'

Source: Gods, Goddesses, And Images of God - Othmar Keel, Christoph Uehlinger - Google Boeken

 

[penknight]

This thread is STILL going on? Come on guys, we put up a good fight but it's time to stop now. Those guys aren't gonna budge no matter what we say. We're just wasting our time with them, and I know you guys can sense the same thing. But if you really want to continue then knock yourselves out.

 

[GodIsSalvation]

The very scholarly sources I cited, that you don't like because they are older, were used strictly in the context of providing a definition for the false Canaanite deity under discussion. I can provide plenty of university dictionary definitions from up-to-date revisions that say the same thing. The source you cite disproves nothing I said but read Dr. Richard S. Hess's (Earl S. Kalland Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Denver Seminary) 'Did Yahweh Have a Wife?' and associated citations for a scholarly refutation.

Source: “Did Yahweh Have a Wife? Iron Age Religion in Israel and Its Neighbors,” pp. 189-224 in Paul Copan and William Lane Craig eds., Come Let Us Reason: New Essays in Christian Apologetics (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2012).

Also read: Richard Hess, Israelite Religions (Baker, 2007), 283-289.

As Dr. Michael Heiser (Ph.D)'s states regarding the false assertion that Yahweh had a wife Asherah:

"So, because we have some inscriptions that *might* point to the goddess Asherah we can then conclude that, at some point, all Yahweh worshippers believed in a divine couple? Why is that demonstrably true over against the view held by basically all scholars of Israelite religion that the textual and material record in Canaan shows us religious diversity?...

I’ve said before that all scholars in biblical studies should be forced to take a course in logic, and this matter is a real case in point. Religious diversity is a far more coherent model. Diversity, of course, means that some would have believed Yahweh had a wife, while others would not. What a surprise. The Hebrew Bible itself tells us (on nearly every page of the Deuteronomistic History1, so to speak) that many Israelites rejected the “orthodox Yahwism” of the prophets, opting for alternative worship for Yahweh...

The claims that are being made about Yahweh and Asherah are fallacious, as they absolutely over-extend the data, not to mention neglecting decades of prior scholarship on the issue."

This is rather interesting really. Heh, the one thing about the God's Wife heresy I find ironic is while it is obvious God did not have a wife, this do prove though much of the Bible due to the fact Asherah is mentioned in the Bible as an idol the children of Israel and the other races were worshipping, thus proving the stories of great heroes destroying idols to Asherah and such as once again giving even more historical reliability to the Bible.